Diamond Island is a tiny, densely-forested island in the Illinois River, running through Calhoun County, Illinois. Something very strange would arrive to terrorise the swampy island in 1885 - it shone brightly like a fire in the sky, and yet seemed to have a mind of its own. Several witnesses even reported that they could see a face within the flames. This fiery phantom would sporadically enforce its reign of terror throughout a period of three years, before vanishing off back to whatever nether realm it had initially flown out of.
The Diamond Island Devil[]
It was shortly after midnight sometime in 1885, and two young men were fishing along the Illinois River, just in front of Diamond Island. They were presumably enjoying some Midwestern idyllic comfort when they suddenly caught sight of a glowing object floating about between the trees on the small island. Almost as if it had noticed them, it suddenly picked up speed and shot through the foliage before taking a sharp turn up into the sky - flying up into the air and then hovering over the island. Terrified, the boys quickly rushed home and woke their parents to tell them about what had happened - insisting that they had been able to see a human face among the flames of the 'fire ball'.
Their parents were presumably skeptical of this wild story, and this skepticism was shared by most of the other townsfolk until more reports of encounters with the smouldering spectre started coming in from well-respected members of the community. A local businessman described seeing a fireball roughly the size of a barrel with 'definite features' in it - he could apparently see 'something fuzzy inside the fire'. An urban legend ultimately developed around the island among the citizens of the nearby town of Hardin (just two miles away) - the oft-repeated version of the story depicted the luminescent whatzit as being the size and shape of an 'ordinary barrel' and as appearing fairly regularly each night at some time around midnight at the foot of the island, which is shaped somewhat like a heart symbol. People believed that the glowing object was the spirit of a man who had allegedly been murdered on the island.
A photograph of burning marsh gas
These legends evidently sent deep roots down into the local community, and it was in early September of 1888 that a gaggle of young men from Hardin armed themselves with revolvers, shotguns, knives and clubs and took to the waters of the Iowa river on a small skiff boat, mooring themselves near to where the flaming entity was said to be usually seen - and took up watch in a nearby clump of trees. They had done all this in absolute secrecy, for if there was someone hoaxing the bizarre events then they didn't want the culprit to know that they were coming.
There was presumably a short moment of silence before everything around the men was suddenly lit up as a blood red object emerged from the water and floated up to a height of about 120ft in the air. It simply hovered there, but the men now had the proof they had been looking for - and their fear got the best of them all at once, prompting them to make a 'mad rush' for their boat. However, this easy escape was clearly not to be - as the men were horrified to see their vessel moving away from the island seemingly of its own accord. Looking more closely at the bizarre scene, the collective hearts of the onlookers likely sank as they saw the red ball of fire sitting comfortably within the boat. However, the barrel-shaped anomaly soon gradually morphed into the shape of a man. This figure had a wide-brimmed slouch hat covering his face, and was busy pulling a 'long, steady stroke' across the water as he dipped the oars in and out of the water at regular intervals. Despite the darkness of the nighttime around them, there was a peculiar light blazing in the air and the water around the now-haunted boat, meaning that the terrified men could see its ghostly occupant perfectly clearly. The witnesses stood on the shore, dumbfounded and paralysed with fear. They found themselves unable to speak, and to be in the grip of a mysterious force which kept their eyes trained on the spectral boatman.
Now that the ghostly sailor had rowed their only means of escape suitably far away from them into the midstream of the river, crimson light once again covered his body and he changed back into his aerial form - ascending into the sky in the guise of a barrel-shaped object of flaming red light. Once this incandescent anomaly was roughly parallel with the tree canopy on the island, it suddenly vanished - leaving the astonished men to stare blankly out at the flickering lights of the nearby city of Hardin before they started to scream in panic at what they had just seen.
Their panicked cries woke a sleeping fisherman on the opposite side of the river, who was able to row across the water and kindly rescue the stranded youths. As of the 18th of September 1888, the 'Hardin Monster' was still said to make nightly visits to the island - but no more would-be ghost hunting parties dared to venture out into the murky forests of the island after what had happened to the foolhardy youths previously discussed.
Extra, Extra - Read All About It?[]
The description of the 1888 events that you just read came from an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published on the 18th of September, 1888 - but there is a slightly different story depicting the events of that same night which appeared online in 2002 thanks to Troy Taylor of the since-shut-down website praireghosts.com. In this alternate account, he describes the light that bathed the island before the entity appeared as being a fiery red-orange colour, and says that the ball of light which then terrorised the witnesses emerged from the trees as opposed to the water. It swooped upwards into the air before simply hanging over the heads of the terrified men.
The witness's fear got the best of them, and they raised their rifles to fire upon the flaming phantom. The storm of lead had no effect on the entity, however, and instead it simply moved down closer to the horrified men. A lone voice soon rose out of the crowd to command them all to 'run' back to one of their boats (they had apparently brought more than one in this retelling of events) - whereupon the fireball arced out of the sky and into the seat of the closest skiff, triggering the boat to suddenly move backwards away from the shore as the fiery light morphed into the shape of a small old man in denim overalls. However, in this version of the tale the man simply stood still in the boat as it moved as opposed to actually rowing it. This vision only lasted for a few moments as the boat moved further and further from the shore. Once it was sufficiently far from being useful to the witnesses, flames suddenly engulfed the man's body and transformed back into a barrel-shaped orb before vanishing above the trees on the island.
The men were too terrified to move, and some of them started desperately screaming for help while others fell to their knees in fervent prayer. This ungodly din woke a local farmer from his slumber, and he came across the river to rescue them despite one of their skiffs still being moored on the shore of the island. The farmer later testified that the men were so traumatised by the occurrence that 'one of the boys had to be carried on and off my rowboat'. The glowing phantom would be seen above the island regularly for several more months before flickering out and vanishing just like the flames it resembled. After that, it was never heard from again.
Sources[]
'THE SPOOK OF DIAMOND ISLAND' in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the 18th of September, 1888
'THE HARDIN MONSTER' by Troy Taylor for prairieghosts.com